A Look into a Magic Mirror
by athousandelegies
Summary: A quick ficlet featuring Aziraphale and Crowley as students at Hogwarts. The pair stumble across the Mirror of Erised and in it they discover what they truly desire.


_Author's Note: This is my first ever crossover fic! Just a quick peak into the life of Aziraphale and Crowley as Hogwarts students! If you've ever read any of my other stuff, you've probably deduced I don't normally ship these two as a couple; but in alternate universes in which they aren't occult/ethereal beings but normal (or, okay, magical) humans, I think it makes sense that their relationship would in time evolve into something romantic. So yes, this story does view them in that light. It's just a quick little story, though, so I didn't have space to develop their relationship much. Anyway, enjoy, and reviews are welcome!_

* * *

"Crowley, Crowley come _on_, Filch is bound to find us any moment—"

"Wait a second, Az."

With their OWLs approaching fast, the two friends had been practicing spells together in an abandoned classroom, and they'd let time slip away from them*. They were just beginning their frantic dash for their respective dormitories (one towering high over Hogwarts grounds and one buried deep in the castle's depths) when Crowley had stopped dead in the middle of the hallway.

Aziraphale** ceased his annoyed tugging on the sleeve of Crowley's robes for a moment, and turned to look in the direction his friend was gazing.

A door was ajar, and from it came a strange aura of…something: a feeling that Aziraphale couldn't quite place in his mind. Longing, perhaps. Or expectation. Whatever it was, the air of the hall was charged with it, and it was emanating from behind the slightly open, nondescript door.

"I don't remember a room ever being here before, do you?" Crowley asked.

"Goodness, Crowley, _I_ don't know, there are so many doors in this school," Aziraphale said. "We really should keep going…" but he too felt the strange aura tugging at him alluringly, and his protest trailed off as Crowley reached out a hand to push the door open.

They stepped inside.

The stone walls within were bare and windowless, and there were no desks or furniture of any kind—the only object in all the room was a tall full-length mirror, gleaming faintly despite the gloom of the place and a heavy layer of dust settled all along its frame.

"_Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi_," Aziraphale murmured, reading aloud the strange words that could just be made out along the top edge.

As one, they stepped nearer.

Crowley glanced at the pair of them reflected in the glass and shook his head—what was a mirror doing with a room to itself?

Aziraphale, however, was staring into the mirror as though it held all the secrets of life and was practically bursting with excitement.

"Look! Look, Crowley! Do you see that?" he squeaked, grabbing onto Crowley's arm.

"What…our reflections?" Crowley said, looking bemusedly at his friend. "Yeah, that's what mirrors typically are for, Az."

"No—what? You mean, you don't see…" Crowley watched as Aziraphale got even closer to the glass, staring fiercely through his thick, lopsided spectacles as though trying to make the image change.

"I just see _us_, Az," Crowley said. "…What do you see?"

"Me, just me, standing in a bookshop, and—and I'm the _owner_, Crowley! Row after row of shelves, and they all belong to me! All the books I could ever hope to read…" His voice faded as he gazed dreamily into the glass.

Crowley, bewildered, looked into the mirror again. Yep, just him and Aziraphale. Except—wait. Something was off.

As he watched, their mirror-selves seemed to be growing older before his eyes. They grew taller, and lines began to appear on their faces; hairs began to turn grey, slowly but surely, and soon enough both images were bent with age.

"Hang on, Az, you're right," he said excitedly; "it's not just a mirror—I see us, but we're aging, and, and—"

Quickly, he glanced down at his real hand. No, it was empty; he was definitely not holding Aziraphale's hand. Yet in the mirror…he looked back up at the image in the glass.

"Do you think this mirror shows the future, Crowley?" Aziraphale asked, looking hopefully into his friend's face.

"I…don't know," he said. He didn't think that was quite it, somehow—maybe not the definite future, but…what _could_ be? What they _hoped_ would come to be? …But that would mean that his hope was simply to…be with Aziraphale. He felt himself flush just thinking that—yet it didn't sound wrong, not really.

He couldn't, as it happened, think of anything he wanted more.

Then he thought of Aziraphale's vision: just himself, all alone with an endless supply of books. He sighed—typical Ravenclaw.

"Do you…do you want it to be the future? Because we can, you know, _make_ it happen—heck, I'll help you get that bookshop, Az…if it's what you want."

Aziraphale was staring back at him with that earnest expression he had, the one that always made Crowley's ears go strangely hot and made him grateful for the cover his sunglasses provided him with. The Slytherin fidgeted uncomfortably. This gaze was even more intent than Aziraphale's usual powerful stare: it was as though the Ravenclaw were seeing Crowley properly for the first time.

"You'd…help me? That's, that's very kind of you, Crowley. I mean, I know you don't care much for books…" The little Ravenclaw whipped his head away from Crowley with a sudden swish of unruly curls to gaze back into the mirror.

"Oh!" he suddenly exclaimed; "there's someone in the back of the shop now, just behind some shelves…Crowley, it's you!" Crowley perked up, watching Aziraphale watch the mirror. "You're approaching me, and you're—oh!" Aziraphale stopped suddenly, and blushed furiously.

That was enough for Crowley. With a self-assured smirk, he seized the Ravenclaw's hand. Aziraphale threw him a startled glance. Then he smiled.

Hand in hand, they looked into the mirror together. And both of them could see the same thing.

Crowley was the first to remember where they were and how late the hour was. "We won't have much of any future at all if Filch catches us out of bed. Let's get going, Az."

And off they went.

* * *

Footnotes:

*And _of course _they had spent every minute studying diligently—no playing around, no laughing at each other's stupid jokes or sending objects flying at each other—no, _no_, none of that nonsense: they weren't _first years_, after all.

**Yes, that was indeed his name; and he didn't get as many jibes about it as you might expect, seeing as half the wizarding population seemed to have names equally outlandish.


End file.
